Sister Race!

My sister Shanon, finally ran a race with me!  That's two siblings that I've had the fun of running a race with.  Shanon started telling me that she wanted to run a race with me, early in the beginning of summer.  While I was so excited about this, I was also nervous.  I had to find the perfect race for her "first race".  I started doing searches trying to find the most perfect race.  When I finally found a good one that I had done in the past, I was afraid of what her answer might be.  Most people start out with a 5K for their first race.  This "perfect race" was a 10K.  To my surprise she said yes!  It was an awesome race, and I'm so glad we got to do this race together!  Shanon's friend Janie also ran the race with us.  It was nice to have Janie there with us on race day.  I only wish that I lived closer so that we could do this more often!  (This race actually happened June 14.  I'm just a little slow at posting.)

Myself, Shanon, and Janie at the beginning of the race.

Shanon got her "PR" so she got to ring the bell at the end of the race!

My running buddy Angela and I.

Myself, Shanon, and Janie at the end of the race!

California.

Josh's biological father passed away.  He lived in Sacramento, California.  So we booked our plane tickets, rental car, and hotel, and made the trip.  We tried to do a little exploring while we were there.  

We went to the Sacramento Zoo.  We were hoping this would be a bigger and more exiting zoo than the Hogle Zoo, but were wrong.  It was also field trip day for the local school, so there were tons of kids.

We only were in Sacramento for 2 days.  One day to go exploring and spend time with Josh's aunt and uncle, and the next day was the funeral. Josh and I both had mixed emotions about the whole thing, but overall it was a good experience and we're glad we went.

This is Uncle Eddie and Aunt Phyllis.  They are the ones that took time out of there busy schedule and spent most of a day with us!  They were so much fun!

 Josh and his brother Dontrae

 Josh and his Aunt Ana

 Josh and Grandma GG

 Grandma GG and I

This is Josh and all of his siblings on his dads side, with Grandma GG.

I did it!!!

Ever since we have moved to Roosevelt, I've had a struggle running.  I have been really into running, for almost 4 years now.  Each summer, every Saturday is usually marked with a race of some sort.  Now that we live 2.5 hours away from Salt Lake, running has been a struggle for me.  It's more difficult for me to do races since we're so far away.  My running girls live in the Layton area, so Salt Lake was always our main places to run races.  In our neighborhood in Magna, there was so many good places to run.  I always looked forward to my daily runs outside.
So far this year, I have done 3 races.  One 10K (6.2 miles), one 10 mile race, and this past Saturday, I did a half marathon.  I have been training for about 3 months.  All of my training has been done on my treadmill.  Since now we live out in the country, I'm terrified to run outside.  I have two fears of running outside.  My first fear is to be hit by a car.  My second fear is to be attacked by a dog.  No one chains up there dogs or has fences.  So dogs are free to roam around.  Since I have these two fears, I still haven't been able to convince myself to run outside.  So I've been stuck on the treadmill watching Netflix while I run.  Not the most enjoyable thing, but I guess it could be worse.
I signed up for the Vigor Utah Half Marathon, months ago.  I usually sign up for months in advance, so I don't talk myself out of doing them.  And they're usually cheaper, the earlier you sign up.  Since I hadn't done any outside training, I was really worried about how my body would handle the actual race.  I drove up to Salt Lake on Friday when I got off of work.  I stayed in a hotel that night.  I barely slept.  I was already nervous about the race, and not being in my own bed didn't help.  I think I probably slept for 3 hours.  My alarm went off bring and early at 3am.  My first thought was, "why in the world am I doing this".  Then I made myself get up and get going.  My excitement and adrenaline started going!  I left the hotel about 3:45am and headed for the bus pick up.  Once I got there, I met all of my fantastic running friends.  We took a bus up to the start line of the race.  Luckily for this race, we got to wait in a heated lodge before the race started.

We stood around and chit chatted for about an hour before they told us it was time to go to the start line.  We began walking down the hill.  When we finally got to the start line, there were 4 port-a-potties for the 403 half marathon runners.  What in the world?!?!  One rule of thumb when running a race, is always use the bathroom before you start.  So my friends and I got in line.  Then it was time for the race to start, and we were still in line for the potties.  I couldn't run without using the bathroom first.  I ended up starting the race 7 minutes after everyone else.  I was the second to last person to start the race.
The race was AMAZING!!  I loved every minute of it!  My body was totally fine until about mile 10.  Then my calves started cramping up really bad.  I kept pushing myself, and just kept hoping I could push to the finish line.  Then I saw the finish line.  I really pushed hard to run as fast as I could, even though at this point my legs were really hurting.  Seeing the finish line and knowing that I was almost there, is such an amazing feeling.  I crossed the finish line 1 hour 57 minutes 34 seconds after I had started the race!  That was a fantastic time for me, and my personal record!  I was so excited!!!  The only thing that would of made it better, was if Josh would of been there waiting for me.  All of the stressing, anxiety, lack of sleep, doubting myself, was all worth it at that very minute!  That feeling is why I do the races I do.  Accomplishing something, that I always try to tell myself I can't do, feels pretty fantastic!  As much as I have tried to talk myself out of doing races, I think I'll find a few more to do this summer.  The feeling is addicting!

A little getaway…….

For those of you that don't know, Josh and I's birthdays are two days apart.  Since we have been together for four of our birthdays now, and we always try to do something special.  Instead of just birth"days", we turn it into a birthday week.  This year we decided to go to Vegas for our birthdays.  Due to my work schedule, we had to take this little vacation before the actual week of our birthdays.  We decided to make it easier on ourselves, and fly out of Vernal instead of Salt Lake.  This would save us 4 hours of driving time, and paying for parking.  We flew from Vernal to Salt Lake, and then had a layover before flying to Vegas.  Once we got to Vegas, we took a shuttle to our hotel.  
We didn't really have too much of a plan once we got to Vegas.  We figured we would just play each day by ear, and do whatever we wanted.  On our first day there, we decided to stop at one of the half price show ticket booths.  The only show we were really interested in seeing was Boyz II Men.  Yes, we're that old!  

We were actually excited to go see them!  And guess what?!  It was even better than we expected it to be!  We sang along to every song we knew.  Definitely worth going to.
The next couple of days we walked up and down the strip.  We went into the different malls and saw different things as we walked around.  It was nice to be in the nice warm sunshine, instead of the cold wind of Roosevelt.  
On our third night there, we were eating at a little restaurant in the hotel we were staying at.  A couple of ladies came up to us and asked if we had plans for that night.  We said no.  They then asked us if we wanted their tickets to the hypnotist that was in about an hour.  They were too tired to go.  We said sure and took the tickets.  It was a comedy hypnotist show, and it was pretty funny.
We had a great time in Vegas.  I didn't want to come home.  Most of all, I was happy to finally have some one on one time with my honey!  We are both always so busy, and always seem to be on opposite working schedules.  I don't know what I would do without Josh by my side.  He is my rock, and is always there for me no matter what.  I love him more than anything in this entire world, and would do anything for him to make him happy.  This was a much needed vacation and I'm so glad we were able to go!

Finally…….Feeling Complete in Roosevelt!

Finally after 4 months of being in Roosevelt, I am starting to feel more complete!  We had been living with some friends of ours, for the last 4 months.  Finding housing in Roosevelt, is next to impossible.  We knew it was going to be difficult before we moved here, but we had no idea it would be as bad as it is.  Most people living in Roosevelt, have built their homes.  There is hardly anything available to rent.  The homes that are for rent, are super expensive.  There's also very few apartment complexes and things like that around here.  We began our search and came with up absolutely nothing.  I was really beginning to doubt our decision to move out here, when we couldn't find anything.
When we had first made our decision to move to Roosevelt, I had talked with my younger brother Tyson.  He had let me know that he had a friend that lived in Roosevelt.  So when our search of finding a place to live turned up nothing, I talked with Tyson.  I asked him if he would ask his friend if he knew of anything to rent in Roosevelt.  Tyson was our good luck charm!  Tyson's friend, just happened to be building duplex's that he was planning on renting out.  We were beyond excited at this point.  We talked with Tyson's friend, and set up an appointment to come and look at the duplex that was being built.  It was still in the early stages of being built, but we knew we had to have it.  A few weeks went by and I had contacted the landlord several times.  We were willing to do anything to make sure that the duplex was ours once it was done.  Finally, after a few weeks, and paying the deposit, it was guaranteed to be ours!  Then the waiting began.  At first we were told it would be completed by the second week of December.  The second week of December came and went.  Then we were told January 1.  January 1 came and went.  Finally on January 6, we paid the rent and were given the keys to our new place to call home.  We couldn't wait to begin moving in.  Josh moved all of the boxes and smaller stuff, in his Durango while I was working.  Then on that Friday, our moving crew (family and friend) thankfully came from Salt Lake to help us move. It was such a happy day!  First thing I did when we had everything in the house, was make the bed so that we could sleep here that night.  All of our belongings have been in a storage unit the entire time we have been here.  It is so nice to finally have all of our things under one roof.  I have never been so grateful to sit on my own couch and sleep in my own bed.  Every day since moving in, has been great! We love our new place to call home!

Half Marathon October 26......Hardest one of my running journey yet!

I completed my third, and toughest, half marathon on October 26.  For those that don't know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles.  Whoever mapped out the course to this half, must not of known this.  According to my Nike+ (a running device that tracks distance), the course was 14.44 miles.  In the running world, an extra 1.34 miles, is alot when you're already exhausted.  The even worse part about it, is that the last 7 miles, were pretty much up hill.  That should not be allowed in a half marathon!  I finished in 2:17:32 and placed 374 out of 1328 runners.

I have the most supportive husband in the world!  He has gone to the majority of my races.  For this one, he took me to the bus pick up at 6:30am, hung out in the parking lot and at the finish line for several hours, and then was still excited for me when I crossed the finish line.  Combined that was about 5 hours, of I'm sure, pure boredom for him.  I love knowing that at the end of my run, he'll be there waiting for me.  I couldn't ask for a better and more supportive husband!

I also have an amazing group that I do my runs with.  It's great to have such a good support system when it comes to our crazy running goals.  We push each other to new levels all the time.  We started out doing 5K's, then we moved onto 10K's, and now we're doing half marathons!  I know that I never thought in a million years that I'd be able to say that I completed three half marathons in 2013!  Below is a picture of a few from my running group of friends that did this half marathon.  Love these guys!

Idaho Travels....

We went to Idaho for a family get together, a couple weekends ago.  It was really nice to get away, and be around family for a little while.  We took a four wheeler ride up to the basin, and got to enjoy all of the beautiful views of Clifton, from the mountains.  It was so much fun!

Clifton is the smallest town ever, and this picture proves it.  Everyone always wonders why I have to describe where Clifton is, and this is why.  Very few people in my life, have had any clue where Clifton, Idaho is.

I love seeing all the fall colors, but I'm sad that winter is right around the corner.  We are glad we made a trip to Idaho before the snow comes!